Jaigurudev ! Pranams to Jagad Guru Sri Sri Ravishankar

Archive for June, 2008

Rishiji’s talk a few weeks ago, either in Seattle or Portland ( i am not sure where !) But does it matter , its just awesome like him…. Also Rishiji was in Kansas City yesterday and today will post some photos soon. We had a BLAST !!!! Jaigurudev

At deepest level there is just ‘nothingness’, from which all forms emerge and dissolve. Everything living and nonliving are manifestation of this
consciousness.

Three levels of listening, intellectual (right, wrong, judgmental), emotional and with open heart (open enquiry, exploring, like a scientist). We all are bundles of consciousness, a Soul going through a journey; and through this journey it collects many impressions.5 elements of consciousness – Gross to subtle, (earth, water, air, fire, space).

Forms of the Consciousness have properties of Satwic, Rajasic, Tamasic. As various laws operate in external world, laws such as gravity,thermodynamics; similarly there are laws of consciousness. Knowing of law or not knowing of laws does not matter. Things we do or happen to us do influence us/ our consciousness. There are two worlds, external world of people, situation and things and Inner world consists 7 layers of Body, breadth, mind, intelligence, memory, ego and soul also called levels of existence: Body Breath Mind

Intelligence – understanding how life functions, discrimination Memory – It is storehouse/hard disk, it has compartments: 1. Conscious memory – remembers events, address. 2. Subconscious memory – collects impressions from many life times, collects effects of events (Karma Fal), habits, emotions. This subconscious memory stays and propagates to next life.

Quality of your life, how you experience life, depends on inner world. You may be in best of outer world, in luxury but if your inner world is not happy,
disturbed, your will not be able to enjoy.

Experience of external world depends on state of internal world. State of inner state creates quality of life from moment to moment.This is how life works. This whole path is making your inner world independent of outer world. In any situation, any state of outer world, when things are conducive or not as per your expectation, maintaining inner beauty, maintaining inner joy, pleasantness, enthusiasm, bliss, is all about this training. Your perception of life:
In different situation, different flavors in you get exposed, different behavior from people, different flavor from you get exposed. If you observe,
there is a Specific repetitive patterns, specific tendency/ habit, your mind might have. In a particular type of situation these same pattern comes up, again and again. It is not we do this once or twice, or occasionally we do it, it is the same behavior is repeated. If different people are criticized, their way to respond is quite different. Some people, as soon as they are criticized – they go to defense mode, some people can go to victim consciousness mode, some people close themselves – aloofness. These tendencies are called Vritties. Sanskar leads to Vritti – tendency/ flavor of consciousness.
Each mind has its own pattern – Vritti/tendencies, habits, these vritties are coloring your Perception, Observation and your Expression. Perception – outside to inside / Observation – inside to inside Expression – inside to outside All these things/behavior are instigated by these habits. If you understand mind, you will see there are Vritties Some Vritties are life enriching – Love, Joy, Bliss, Peace; and some Vritties are life diminishing – such as Krodh which prevents us from enjoying true nature of JOY. Klishtha Vritti – harmful tendencies/ patterns A-Klishtha Vritti – beneficial tendencies/ patterns If you are able to identify these Vritties, we can enhance useful habits and release harmful habits. You can accelerate your path of liberation.

Q:How to become a good volunteer?
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Sri Sri: To be a good volunteer -(1) Avoid and ignore those who hamper your work . There will be many at every corner of life, who would like to resist, dishearten you , ignore them and keep doing the work.(2) Whatever work you do someone or other will find fault or blame you. Keep working without losing your enthusiasm and spirit. (3) Do not react to criticism.(4) Always be happy !

Q: How to handle those who lie to us?

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Sri Sri: With a smile, compassion. Understand that the person lying to you lovesyou so much that they value your love/acceptance more than truth itself! I have some devotees in the ashram who lie to me. I just ask them about the matter with a smile and they smile back!

Q: Destiny is decided at birth. Then why should we anything?
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Sri Sri: To improve yourself is also a part of destiny. World is a combination of destiny and Karma. Some things can be changed, some things cannot be changed.

Q: What is witnessconsciousness? (Shakshi Bhav)
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Sri Sri: Wait… (Looking for something on the seat). Wait… (Running his fingers through His hair). Wait..(Crowd laughs) I did not ask you to laugh, I said just wait. See what is happening to your mind? That is Shakshi Bhav…the witnessing consciousness. When you are listening withoutreacting, that is witness consciousness. For example if you are at the airport andthere is a flight announcement for another flight. What do you do? Just witness without reacting. Right?Similarly you are at the railway platform with many other people whom you don’tknow. In a while some trains come and those people get into their respective trainsand go. What do think you are doing at that moment? You are simply witnessing.Do you see what I am saying?

Q: You said at the Navratri that we see only 0.003% of what is actually happening. Can you please talk on that?

Guruji : You know there was this scientist named Mickel Kako who established a theory, after having done several experiments and research, that there are parallel worlds. It is he who said that, what we see is only 0.003% of what is actually happening. What we cannot see is the ‘Dark Energy’.

What we cannot see is the ‘Dark Energy’. That’s what he named it. The power of that ‘Dark Energy’ is unlimited! It is immense! In fact our Rig-Veda also says the same thing. The ‘Dark’ is referred to here as the ‘Tamas’. Even Rig-Veda says that this ‘Tamas’ has great power. That’s why they say ‘Kali’. The dark Goddess. She just do not symbolize destruction, she is also referred to as the epitome of knowledge. Like the pupil of our eye is dark! It is because of that we can see. Do you see what I am saying? The source of knowledge is the ‘Kaali’

Q: In our childhood we heard that there is someone named ‘Chitragupta’ who is talking note of all our actions and is responsible for counting our karma balances. Is that true? Is there really someone who is watching us every moment?

Guruji: ‘Chitra’ means photo, picture and ‘Gupta’ means secret, hidden. The self who is witnessing the actions, the conscious mind is referred here to as Chitragupta. You know there is this saying which says, ‘Under the foot-print of an elephant, all other marks dissolve’. Therefore under the Guru when are doing your Sadhana and Seva and Satsang then everything else dissolves. Similarly Chitragupta is not the (Malik) God, he is the (Sevak) servant. But I tell you without self knowledge
everything is false!!

A seven-minute documentary called Vasundhara starring spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar talks about the percussions of global warming on people and educates people about techniques that could be used to save the earth.

The movie also features stars such as Hema Malini, Ajay Devyan, Kunal Kapoor, Shankar Mahadevan and Suresh Oberoi.

Ameet Satnam, the producer of the documentary, says, I wanted to educate the common man about how he/she can contribute towards safeguarding the environment. Also most people think and believe that global warming is a natural concept where no one can help.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar clears the blurred vision and mentions the other issues we need to address.

Apart from global warming, another important issue that we have to address is the societal violence that is increasing in the country. Every day in television and newspapers we find reports on crime and violence. People are fed up with this kind of news. This culture of violence has infiltrated even the field of sports. For more than a month the TV channels showed the incident of a player hitting another. A murder case is replayed repeatedly on the TV. It is so depressing for the common man, He says.

The United Nations will screen the film during their climate change programmes and various other gatherings.

For a social cause to find stable ground in the country is could be painless. But with star power anything is possible.

Ameet subtly seconds the thoughts and replies, Yes, it is always better. And the film is in Hindi, thus the stars are a good medium to connect with the masses